Watch $218 Million Mega Millions Drawing Stream Live: Will Winning Numbers Hit Jackpot After 22 Straight Drawings?


After 22 straight drawings without a jackpot winner, the Mega Millions Memorial Day Weekend drawing will stream live online as a life-changing top prize of $218 million will be on the line when the six ping pong balls drop at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, May 27.

Scroll down this page to watch the Mega Millions $218 million drawing stream live.

The Mega Millions jackpot is now at its highest level in more than 11 months. On June 2, 2015, the jackpot reached $262 million — a jackpot shared by two people, John Williams and Neil Logue of Blue Island, Illinois. That jackpot was one of eight awarded in 2015, and the second-highest Mega Millions jackpot of last year.

A $265 million jackpot on January 16, 2015 was won by one person, also in Illinois.

Mega Millions drawings have hit the jackpot twice so far in 2016 — a $169 million prize won on January 8 in New York, and a $157 million jackpot on March 8, won by one man in Seattle, Washington.

But since last June, the Mega Millions jackpot never topped the $200 million mark until Tuesday of this week, when — after a winnerless run extending back to March 11 — the top prize ticked up to $203 million.

Total ticket sales for Tuesday’s drawing reached 29,393,298, the highest total since 47,993,444 were sold for that same June 2, 2015, drawing, and still produced no ticket matching all five numbers plus the Mega Ball number.

Watch a replay of the the winning numbers drawing for the Tuesday, May 24, Mega Millions lottery in the video below.

To find out how to watch a live stream of the Friday, May 27, $218 Mega Millions jackpot drawing, click on the video below, or see the streaming link in the final paragraph of this article.

The drawing takes place at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time, 7:59 Pacific, at the studios of WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia. It is suggested that lottery watchers log in to the live stream a few minutes early, to avoid any problems caused by heavy internet traffic at the time of the drawing.

The $218 million figure represents the “annuity” jackpot, that is, the amount that would go to a winner who decides to take the Mega Millions payout in 30 annual installments. In that case, each payment would average $7,266,667.

The federal government takes 25 percent in taxes off the top, reducing each annual payment to, on average, $5,450,000. States also take taxes off the top of a lottery jackpot, though the amount varies from state to state.

California, Texas, and six other states do not tax lottery jackpot winnings, while New York, for example, levies a steep 8.82 percent tax. So a winner of Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot who chooses the annuity option would pocket after all taxes an average annual payout of $4,809,080.

On the other hand, most Mega Millions winners choose to take the “cash option,” which pays the jackpot in a single lump sum.

But the cash option is always a lower amount than the advertised jackpot, due to the way the Mega Millions lottery finances top prizes using bonds that take three decades to mature. The cash option for the Friday Mega Millions drawing is estimated at $142 million.

After Uncle Sam takes his cut, a “cash option” winner of the $218 million Mega Millions jackpot on Friday will be left with “only” $106.5 million.


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Return to this Inquisitr page at 10:59 Eastern time on Friday, May 27, to watch a live online video stream of the $218 million Mega Millions jackpot drawing, or access the live lottery jackpot video via the Powerball-Mega Millions streaming site by clicking on this link.

[Featured Photo By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]

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